


folk etymologies

by cosmogyral



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Community: femgenficathon, Future Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-05
Updated: 2010-08-05
Packaged: 2017-10-10 23:04:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/105383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmogyral/pseuds/cosmogyral
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>110) Speak. Shatter the silence. Question everything. Redefine. Reimagine patriotism. Reimagine hatred and take back the language.  -- Terry Tempest Williams</p><p>Rose and Terezi vs. The World.</p><p>(This is not part of femgenficathon 2010 but was written in response to a prompt from it.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	folk etymologies

The thing about a rift is that it sounds so dramatic it sneaks under your guard. Rose knows from experience. You get hung up on stopping it, or just on seeing through to the other side. You do stupid things to make it go away, then you act like it's not there. You skip around time trying to find its limits and fold space trying to create them. It's all unnecessary.

The thing about a rift is that it's all in the etymology.

What you tear, you can sew.

* * *

****

**gallowsCalibrator [GC] began trolling tentacleTherapist [TT]**

**  
GC: WHO4 1 D1DNT KNOW YOU WROT3 L1K3 TH1S  
GC: TO B3 HON3ST 1TS SL1GHTLY OFF-PUTT1NG  
GC: 1 KN3W YOU T4LK3D TOO MUCH  
GC: 1 D1DNT R34LLY G3T TH4T YOU US3 MOR3 WORDS TH4N 4NYON3 COULD 3V3R B3 3XP3CT3D TO R34D  
TT: It's true, then. The feathery version of Dave and you have been consulting like Brutus and Cassius.  
TT: Only sharper-tongued.  
TT: Did you see what I was getting at?  
GC: 4CTU4LLY 1 D1D  
GC: 1TS NOT 4 B4D 1D3A  
GC: 1TD B3 34S13R 1F W3 COULD DO TH1S 1N P3RSON  
GC: 1NST34D OF TR4D1NG COD3S  
TT: Not to mention the opportunities to watch me bleed as you smell me die?  
GC: 1 C4NT W4TCH YOU BL33D S1LLY 1M BL1ND  
TT: Ah. My mistake.  
TT: At any rate, I think the gods will take care of that wrinkle for us. I've arranged transportation for myself and my friends.  
GC: C4N YOU T4K3 US B4CK TO YOUR S3SS1ON  
TT: I don't see why not.  
GC: 4W3SOM3  
GC: 1 C4NT W41T FOR YOU TO V1S1T ROS3  
GC: W3R3 GO1NG TO H4VE SO MUCH FUN**

* * *

The gods tell her _cross_ and she crosses, somehow, the world folding in and out around her until she's in a different Medium for a different world. She trails with her time and pesterlogs, sowing the seeds for her own arrival so that when she gets there she knows that there will be someone to welcome her.

The veil is the same, essentially, in the troll's session as it was for them, though theirs was still feeding meteors through it when she sketched a sigil into space and stepped through to another world. The troll's has long since stopped its evacuation. The last few meteors orbit, lonely, around a ragged scar of a planet that must once have been Skaia.

"Pleased to meet you," she says, sticking out her hand for the girl to shake. With some trial and error, Terezi takes it and squeezes it hard.

"Best hatefriends," she says triumphantly. "We can make out later if you want."

"I'm surprised to hear you discuss affection in terms not immediately prefaced with 'that human emotion'," she says as she follows Terezi inside. "Besides, I was under the impression you were all insectoid."

"Paradox space doesn't work like that. It makes all the worlds it eats more or less the same," Terezi says, trailing a hand along the wall and finding the light. "So, like, once a year you dress up like us to get delicious versions of our horns. And you have Human Will Smith."

"Complex," Rose says. "But elegant." She watches Terezi activate the alchemiter, then hands over a Thorn. It's strange that she's so reluctant to give Terezi one of her possessed knitting needles, or to put it another way, completely predictable. Terezi clasps her hands together, then produces from her sylladex a tin of bubbling green slime. "Sopor," says Rose, "from the Latin."

"Uhhhh, no, from the Old Alternian," Terezi says, making a funny face. "Wow, you're almost as bad as Vriska. You have to learn to roll with this."

"Or failing that, cheat."

"Or cheat." Terezi hits the button and the What Seams May Come appear in glossy green glory on the alchemiter's surface. She picks one up, dubiously. "These smell like death. And not in a good way."

"That's the idea." Rose picks up the other, and then, because she can't resist, swishes it around like she's Strider in a swordfight. "Okay. Let's go knit up the raveled sleave of care."

"See, that's another one," Terezi says, beaming. "You've got human Derek Jeter too."

* * *

The first thing they need is a distraction, and Spades Slick honestly sounded like a good idea, an excellent plan, the best, except for that Rose is pretty sure this is going to end with their murder.

"Now here's something interesting," says the queen -- Snowman -- her cigarette holder inscribing a lazy arc over their chests. About six seconds ago she knocked them down with it. She leans a little closer to Terezi. "I know you."

"Yep," Terezi says, unfazed, possibly because she can't see how close the glowing cherry is to her face. "I deposed you. You were great. Do you still have that whip?"

Snowman turns her attention to Rose. "So what's this? They dip one of you in blood?"

"Rose, I'm Rose, Lalonde," says Rose, adding insightfully, "Rose."

"This is Rose Lalonde," says Terezi, with a cherubic expression. "She's in awe of your majesty."

Snowman laughs, a sudden and raucous noise, and straightens up. "What majesty?" she says, gesturing for them to rise. "These days I'm just a dame in a dirty town. Or so they tell me."

"Who can't be killed," says Rose, with a womanful attempt at gravitas, "or the world will end."

Snowman laughs again, and this time under the cigarette harshness Rose can hear what she sounded like when she was the winged queen of a dark kingdom. This whole escapade is playing havoc with her young sexuality. "Is that what they're saying these days?"

"If you get hurt, the sky rips open," Rose persists. "Isn't that right?"

"That's right."

Terezi bounces on her heels. "Well, come on then, I want to smell your scar."

Snowman unbuttons her jacket at the wrist and rolls it up. Across the ubiquitous barcode there's a crack in the carapace when the light gets in, green and vicious. Before she can put it back away Terezi leans in and runs her tongue across it, quick and professional. She licks her own teeth.

"Well?" Rose demands.

"Computer," Terezi says, thoughtfully. "And death. It's some kind of gross code."

Rose, emboldened, dips her head to take a sniff herself and is rewarded by the butt of the whip upside her head. "Right," she says, straightening up. "Well. We should go find Mr. Slick."

"Don't let him hear you calling him mister, darling," Snowman says, striding off. "He'll take it as a sign of weakness."

* * *

****

**turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT]**

**  
TG: explain something to me  
TT: I'm busy.  
TG: yeah youre busy explaining to me why all the timelines say theres two of the final boss  
TG: because obviously youd go and duplicate the final boss on us rose  
TG: thatd be a great idea because what this game needed was a little motherfucking challenge up ins  
TT: I didn't duplicate the final boss. He was already duplicated.  
TG: okay well that answer definitely made a lot of sense and satisfied all my questions  
TG: i just have this one last loose end  
TG: what the fuck is going on  
TG: if you could answer that with a quibble about my wording that would really fulfill me  
TT: I'm not going to quibble, Dave.  
TT: It's simply that I'm marshalling my forces for a final assault.  
TG: well how come i havent been marshalled then  
TT: I don't need a knight in shining armor just yet.  
TT: Don't worry. I'll alert you the second I require your help.  
TG: i get it this is some weird pride thing  
TG: lalonde havent you figured out yet you do this a lot better when youve got your motherfucking dream team here to tuck you in tight  
TG: give you some delicious zs and a cocktail of sheep with a xanax of friendship  
TT: Perhaps I think I'm making better decisions than you.  
TG: how about this  
TG: i dont wait for you to figure out you need help and you dont duplicate the final boss anymore  
TT: Check to see what he's actually doing, Strider.  
TT: I think you'll find it to your liking.  
TG: well im definitely anyones biggest fan who wears a suit that snazzy to do all that murdering  
TG: tell your psycho bitch bff that she should get a suit  
TT: She says to assure you that she has several.**

gallowsCalibrator [GC] began trolling turntechGodhead [TG]

  
GC: WOULD YOU L1K3 M3 1N 4 T13 D4V3  
TG: fuck off will smith  
GC: OH M4N Y3S

* * *

"No, see, you left a loop open," John is saying, his chin resting on the top of Sollux's head. As Rose watches, he takes a surreptitious sniff of the horns.

"They don't taste like candy corn," Rose informs him, and John yelps and jumps about a mile.

"I think they taste delicious," says Terezi. "I haven't had candy corn, though, so who knows what kind of human abomination that is. Hi, evildoer."

"Rose!" John complains, picking himself up off the floor. "You didn't tell me this plan involved Psycho Killer."

"It involves the Seer of Mind helping me out," Rose says, accepting John's hug stiffly. She's never sure what to do with her arms.

John squeezes, then draws back. "Okay," he says, putting about fifteen dubious syllables into the second vowel. "I don't mind your crazy plans with their craziness. I just hate it when you don't tell me about them."

"I'm not going to tell you about this one either," Rose admits. "But what can you tell me about the session split?"

"You two are crossing because of a loophole in Sburb's code," Sollux explains, scrolling through the ~ATH at lightning speed. "I think it's somewhere around here. This would be a lot easier if I could still read."

"I keep trying to explain what a screenreader is," John confides in her. "I think he thinks I'm joking."

"Shut up, human grub, suck my bubbling nook," Sollux complains, and taps the screen. "Is that right?"

To Rose the letters might as well be Sanskrit. John nods. "It's the rift," he explains. "When the game dies, the Medium is supposed to become part of the larger gamespace. But Jack Noir tore something and we're adrift. So the rift is like--" He gestures, helplessly.

"Like a broken seam," Terezi says, unexpectedly. She's taken up position on Sollux's lap and has exchanged his glasses for hers. "Between patches on a quilt."

"Right," says John. He wrinkles his brow. "Wait, do you guys have _quilts?_ What are they, like, _inside_ the weird slimy stuff?"

"Focus," Rose orders, grabbing both his hands with reckless use of affectionate contact. "So the green aspect to the rift is comparable to stuffing showing through. The stuffing in this metaphor being ... game code."

John beams at her. "Yep. And because you can slip through the stuffing, you can move around on the underside of the blanket. The real world."

"Between times and planets. And other sessions."

"Yeah, except," says Sollux, "if that scar gets any bigger, the world will fold in on itself."

"Don't worry," says Rose. "Just according to keikaku. For your information, that joke will be hilarious in two million years."

* * *

They drop down a little way from a campfire on a dead planet. On the sands, behind the pillar of a froggy ruin, an aimless renegade contemplates a starry sky and his bazooka. He falls over at the sight of them, and it takes the both of them pulling together to get him back upright. He and Terezi have a truly terrifying amount in common; they spend an hour talking excitedly about the demise of the wicked and how much they both want to get their hands on the mendicant's sword, while Rose sketches meticulous pentagrams on a sandstone block that crackles with contraband power. It absorbs her completely, the gods beyond the furthest ring whispering variously helpful advice, so that when she looks up she finds that Terezi's already explained what they want from the renegade, and has moved on to teaching him how to use one of the needles the way she uses her cane, _whop-pah!_ and a whole host of imaginary imps collapsing.

He peels the caution tape off his body, solemnly, and Rose feeds it into the center of the circle where it spins itself into yarn, a sickly yellow with patches of void. Terezi wolf-whistles, but is saved from any retaliation by the beeping of her computer screen.

"Uh," she says. "The voices of the dead have this idea."

"You communicate with the voices of the dead over your handheld? How cutting edge of you." Rose unwinds her new scarf from around her neck and offers it to the renegade, who takes it, dubiously, and begins to cover himself back up.

"I do with one of them." She holds up the smudgy screen and Rose can just make it out, apocalypseArisen suggesting "we think he has s0me very imp0rtant w0rk".

The renegade is even more dubious about this idea, but Terezi prods him in the back with her cane. "Listen up," she says, "I'd hate to have to hold a trial and discover your many and various crimes against Alternia, Earth, and all of Skaia. I bet exile would be seen as a pathetic, weak-willed excuse for a sentence."

"Hate being one of those words that translates badly from your language," Rose says dryly, but that's all it takes, and the renegade shudders. He steps forward towards the pentacle, still clutching the knitting needle. The yarn's finished feeding through; it'll wait for them at the rift. He salutes.

Terezi shoves.

The gods gather him up with a shriek of strings and send him rocketing to where he needs to be.

("Which," Rose says, "is where, exactly?"

Terezi shrugs. "Big black paperweight?")

* * *

****

**carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling gallowsCalibrator [GC]**

**  
CG: I'D ASK YOU WHAT THE FUCK YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE DOING  
CG: BUT I'VE FINALLY LEARNED SOMETHING ABOUT YOU WHICH IS THAT ASKING ABOUT WHATEVER IS BUBBLING INSIDE YOUR FOULSMELLING BRAIN MEATS IS BASICALLY A GUARANTEE THAT I'LL WANT TO KILL MYSELF AFTERWARDS  
GC: H3LLO TO YOU TOO BR4V3 L34D3R  
CG: OH NO WE ARE NOT GOING THERE  
CG: YOUR STUPID POINTLESS RECOGNITION OF MY TALENTS IS PRETTY MUCH SOMETHING YOU USE ONLY WHEN YOU'RE PLANNING TO FUCK ME OVER IN NEW AND EXCITING WAYS  
GC: UMMM K4RK4T 1F YOU DONT N33D M3 FOR TH1S CONV3RS4T1ON 1M K1ND OF DO1NG SOM3TH1NG H3R3  
CG: YES, I KNOW.  
CG: TEAMING UP WITH THE SEER OF LIGHT IN ORDER TO BLAH BLAH BLAH, MASTER PLAN, I DON'T CARE  
CG: WHICH FRANKLY MAKES YOU SOUND LIKE SOME BORED BLUEBLOOD WITH A GRUB UP HER ORIFICE BUT THAT ISN'T THE POINT  
CG: THE POINT IS I'VE BEEN RUNNING THE ODDS ON EVIL HELLBITCH'S DICE AND I'VE DONE SOME SUPERCOMPLICATED MATH AND YOUR CHANCE OF SURVIVAL AT THE MOMENT IS BASICALLY AS GOOD AS YOUR CHANCE OF EVER MAKING ME WANT TO HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH YOU VOLUNTARILY AGAIN  
GC: 4WWW K4RK4T  
GC: DO YOU W4NT TO PROT3CT M3??  
GC: 1 D1DNT KNOW YOU F3LT TH4T W4Y 4BOUT M3 NOBL3 L34D3R  
CG: SEE HERE WE GO AGAIN, WHERE MY SENSIBLE ADVICE IS TAKEN FOR THE INTERPLAY OF FURIOUS EMOTIONS THAT YOU BARELY HAVE THE TRAINING TO COMPREHEND  
CG: LOOK THE BOTTOM LINE IS  
CG: HOW ABOUT YOU DON'T DIE  
GC: Excuse me if my responses seem confused.  
GC: I may not be exactly accustomed to using this interface, and her screen is partially smudged.  
GC: ...Make that entirely smudged.  
GC: But Terezi wishes me to assure you that you have nothing to worry about.  
CG: I LITERALLY CANNOT BELIEVE THAT YOU AND SHE ARE IN CAHOOTS. IT IS MAKING ME SICK TO MY GUT ACIDS.  
CG: BUT SINCE TEREZI'S DECIDED TO LEAVE ME TO TALK TO A HUMAN IMBECILE WITH THE BRAIN FUNCTION OF AN EVAPORATED BOTTLE OF FAYGO  
CG: I SHOULD MAKE SOMETHING CLEAR  
GC: I'm all ears.  
CG: IF YOU LET HER GET KILLED BY YOUR TOTAL LACK OF ABILITY TO BEAT THIS GAME  
CG: I WILL FIND A WAY TO MAKE THE REST OF YOUR EXISTENCE AN EVERLASTING TORMENT  
CG: THIS COUNTS IF YOU DIE, TOO, GOD KNOWS WE'VE LEARNED THAT THE GHOSTS CAN BE ANNOYING AS FUCK AS WELL  
GC: 4WWWW K4RK4T TH4T'S SO SW33333333T**

gallowsCalibrator [GC] has ceased trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG]

  
CG: GODDAMMIT.

* * *

"Do you believe persistence is a virtue?" asks Rose. "Or do you consider it a vice?"

"I know Karkat's, like, a bloodsucking parasite who's latched onto you and won't go away until he's drained your whole family," Terezi says. She's holding the darning needle completely backwards, and Rose leans in to adjust her grip. "Thanks. This is kind of tricky. But he's one of eleven living members of our species, so, you know. We can't cull him or anything."

Rose wrinkles her nose, remembers John, unwrinkles it. "You cull people."

"The weak, the morally unsound, the annoying, people who don't show enough respect, people who show too much respect--" Terezi waves her needle and a stitch slides towards the point, which Rose catches in a hurry. "I mean we don't go overboard about it. It's just a population and hatred thing."

"Right," Rose says. "That wasn't precisely the direction I was intending to take this conversation."

"Well, I'm kind of tired of talking about how we're going to die," Terezi snaps. Her needle slips again and she jabs it viciously back into the sock. "Because it's not like I'd noticed or anything."

Rose murmurs, "So, you think failure is inevitable."

"Oh, shut it, Lalonde!" Terezi tosses the sock on the table. "I think we're doing something smart, and it's awesome. But we're breaking all the rules. And I know exactly what happens to people who break all the rules."

"Yes," says Rose. "You."

Terezi lets this sit in silence for a while, long enough that Rose considers reminding her that this is not, in fact, a cross-examination; then she picks up the darning needle again, looping the yarn around her wrists in the process. "I can't do this," she says. "Maybe if I held it in my teeth. But it just smells like a blob."

"Returning me to my initial question," Rose points out. "Persistence."

"Persistence sucks," Terezi says. "Persistence is just waiting around until something happens." She taps her fingers on Rose's dining room table. "I mean maybe we're thorough. Or ornery."

"I like ornery," Rose concedes. "Contrary?"

"Huge bitches," Terezi suggests. "We're happening to other people."

They both smile, privately, down at their hands.

"So," Rose says. "Karkat?"

"Ughhhh, you do not know when to quit," Terezi complains, and lets Rose begin to untangle her arms.

* * *

****

**tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering gardenGnostic [GG]**

**  
TT: If our witch isn't too busy, I need some help with a matter of space.  
GG: hi rose!!!!  
GG: im trying to get past this ogre but i can help you out in a second?? what do you need?  
TT: I need to get to the edge of the universe.  
GG: oh wow okay!!!  
GG: that could be a little tricky :__o  
GG: but i can try!! is this so you can knit up the rift?  
TT: ... I thought you were no longer prophetic.  
GG: ummm no :__(  
GG: but i know you rose!  
GG: i've been talking to dave :__) :__) :__)  
GG: he says youre in trouble but i know you are smart and wouldn't get into anything you can't get out of!  
TT: I'm glad you know that about me.  
TT: Since it's such an incontrovertible truth.  
GG: good :__D  
TT: If it wasn't so obvious that I knew what I was doing, Jade, would you still help me?  
GG: well obviously. we're friends!!!  
GG: we're all just making it up i think  
GG: it's scary not knowing what to do  
GG: but i've still got some hints left  
GG: and tavros has been talking to me about it!  
TT: Tavros?  
GG: adiosToreador :__D :__D he's soooooo nice  
GG: anyway he says if terezi says she knows what she's doing then youre probably alright!  
TT: And if Terezi was also adrift?  
GG: uhhhh he says terezi doesnt get adrift!  
GG: he says  
GG: if you think she is you probably just aren't there yet  
GG: and she can be a little bit scary but basically she's a good person!! :__)  
TT: Your talent for verisimilitude is unsurpassed, but I'm fairly sure that last clause was a lie.  
GG: okay gosh you caught me.....  
GG: rose!!  
GG: whatever youre worrying about  
GG: don't!  
GG: i trust you. :__) :__) &lt;3 &lt;3 &lt;3  
TT: Has it ever occurred to you that that might be what's so worrying?  
GG: nope!  
GG: good luck.  
TT: Thank you.**

* * *

In the end, to take them to the end, what Jade sends is a broom. Terezi loves it. She runs her hands down its side and sticks her face in the bristles. "It's like the saying," she says. "A broom made of your enemy's hair and bones sweeps clean."

"We just say a new broom."

"That's what I said." Terezi climbs on, looking like Harry Potter, and tugs Rose up after her. "You ready?"

No.

They rocket upwards and outwards. They're not strictly speaking moving through space at all, but through the shifting dimensions and layers of proximity that swaddle the game world like a baby-blanket, or, in fact, a metaphorical quilt. It doesn't take them time, exactly, to get there, either, but Terezi still groans and asks, "Are we there yet?" at least twice.

Rose stands on tiptoe to do this, and she takes the yarn from the gods' tentacled grip and threads it through the needle's eye. The first passes are easy, long not-actually-vertical lines that stretch across the comforting thickness of real space. The broom obligingly follows with her, taking her back, across, back, across, and then across the gap -- a sickening experience as the world glitches wildly. She swallows. Again. Back. The glitching sickness. Again. Across. Back. Across.

Once she's finished with the vertical she swings back around and begins the trickier process of the actual darn, the yarn trailing behind her as she loops over, under, over the lattice. There really isn't anything to this, she thinks, which is of course when she dips down too low and the broom rocks and Terezi slides and falls. Rose lunges and tangles her hand in Terezi's collar.

"This," she says, breathlessly, "is not ideal."

Terezi squints up at her. "You need both hands."

Rose doesn't dignify this with an answer. If she can just wedge it between her knees--

"Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you," the girl says, and bites Rose, hard, and Rose just has time to catch the needle before she realizes she's let go, and Terezi's a plummeting rocket, and the thing about plans is, who cares, and the thing about the rift is it's all in the terminology. What you can scar, you can kill.

Rose dives and the maw of the world opens before her until she's not falling but flying, and the yarn trails behind her until it snaps tight as she gets her hands round Terezi's skinny one. It's not green all around them, why is it not green? they were falling into a verdant tear in the universe and there were white faces and numbers, and now here they are as deep in the Rift as they are in the shit and they are blind together.

_You have my attention,_ says the demon, in a voice that isn't a voice at all.

He could devour them flesh from bone right now, and use their souls to pick his teeth, but he doesn't, and Rose pulls herself up on her yarn and crosses her fingers against unraveling. "Your programming is lazy," she yells. "Or you'd know how to deal with contingencies."

_There are no contingencies,_ Lord English sighs. _Your partner of all people should see that. It is the law, and there is only the law._

Terezi says slowly, "Yeah. I get it."

_It's best if you accept now that everything has been laid out long ago._

"Oh, yeah," Terezi agrees, "way long ago. In fact, there's no point in doing anything." She is gleeful, almost celebratory. Rose squeezes her eyes shut. "I mean, basically the only thing left to do is enforce the law."

_Exactly._

"Then let me call you a cop," says Terezi, and whistles, and the gods of the furthest ring swallow their shrieks and the awful rage of the law streaks lightning-fast and black into the heart of chaos, holding a needle like a sword.

Lord English _screams_\--

Rose can see again, though only in impressionistic terms, the world she knows above her and Alternia below, and the darn holding them in place. She regards Terezi along the length of yarn. "So," she says, after she's mostly got her breath back, "circumstances are preventing the eventual liplocking."

"You talk wayyy too much," Terezi informs her, and wraps the yarn around her wrist until they're an inch away from each other's faces, at which point she gives Rose's face an enormous lick. "Wow," she adds. "You taste like lavender vomit. Go take a nap."

Rose grins at her. "It's been swell."

"Agreed," says Terezi. She snaps the yarn.

* * *

When she wakes she's swaddled in Prospitian banners, Dave seated by her side. Jade and John are starting a campfire and, apparently -- she maneuvers herself up onto one elbow to get a better look -- arguing over whether or not they should make s'mores. She falls back down almost immediately, and realizes, with a sense of fuzzy confusion, that her arms are very sore.

"Well, yeah," says Dave, who in person has red hair. "You going to tell me why I found you hanging from yarn in the middle of space?"

"I was killing the demon," Rose says. She reaches up and yanks at Dave's hair. "I refuse to believe we're related. This looks ridiculous."

"Get used to it, Lalonde," Dave scoffs, "I am the coolest. You wait, the bug people will be painting their carapaces red in a cheap imitation of my style. And I'll be like, 'What? You're trying to be down with the whatever? At least get some sunglasses.'" He tips his down. "Which is another thing you could've used. You look like a lobster."

"Direct exposure to the paradox part of paradox space?" Rose says. "I'm lucky I don't look like a corpse." She sighs. "It may be foolish, but I was hoping it would close the loops."

"Excuse me, what is the one rule of time travel," Dave says, rolling his eyes and pushing his glasses back into place. "It never works out the way you want it to."

"So Earth is still dead, and I've sealed us off from any other sessions, and we've devastated this fantasy world we're stuck in for now," Rose says. "This is not precisely the victory I was imagining."

Dave takes off his glasses altogether to roll his eyes at her again. "Rose."

"Yes?" she says, mimicking his inflection.

"Are you _dead?_"

"No."

"Then it's a win," Dave says, with finality. "Now shut the fuck up and go back to sleep."

To her intense surprise, she finds herself complying.

* * *

In her dreams she isn't on a strange world, in a purple dress, dreaming of a golden throne. There are no dark voices whispering to her. She dreams that she's sitting on a broom -- Jade's idea of a joke -- in the recesses of space, with a girl next to her who has gray skin and a murder complex. In her dream they wait, in companionable silence, to redefine the world. She doesn't need to say anything at all.


End file.
